How to see the other aircraft’s in X-plane

The default aircraft setting in XSquawkbox is the B737.So the other players will see your aircraft as a B737, whatever aircraft you are flying.To change that you’ll have to change the settings in XSquawkbox.

In a MWA the preferred aircraft is the Beechcraft King Air 350. In X-plane 11 most of the pilots will fly the Beechcraft C90b.

The only way XSquawkBox knows which aircraft the pilot is flying, is by inspecting the ICAO aircraft code which was entered by the pilots into their client. The ICAO code for the Beechcraft Baron 58 is BE58, for the Beechcraft C90b it is BE9L.

A list of ICAO aircraft codes can be found here: https://www.icao.int/publications/doc8643/pages/search.aspx

So this is what the pilots need to enter in their client where it asks for the ICAO code of their aircraft.

The XSquawkBox aircraft library

XSquawkBox has his own aircraft library which it uses to display the aircrafts in a multiplayer session. The default aircrafts in that library aee the B737 and de Cessna 172.

The aircraft types are stored in \X-Plane 11\Resources\plugins\XSquawkBox\Resources\CSL

There are several sources to get more than the standard aircrafts in this CSL-map. One is the X-CLS-Updater (https://csl.x-air.ru/) and the other is the Xsquawkbox CSL package https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/37041-bluebell-obj8-csl-packages

For the MWA we use the X-planes Beechcraft C90b, but that aircraft type is not in the XSquawkBox CLS-packages. A good alternative is the Beechcraft Baron 58. So we use that as the default XSquawkBox aircraft type.

Steps to take:

  • Download and execute the X-CLS-Updater (https://csl.x-air.ru/)
    • Go to Menu – Set Custom Path and chose as path: X-Plane 11\Resources\plugins\XSquawkBox\Resources\CSL
    • Press Index and install the Beechcraft Baron 58
  • Go to the Xsquawkbox CSL package (https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/37041-bluebell-obj8-csl-packages/
    • download BB_Jets.zip, BB_Props.zip and BB_GA.zip and unzip those three in \X-Plane 11\Resources\plugins\XSquawkBox\Resources\CSL NB! I don’t know if all these install are necessary, but better more variety then less
  • Start X-plane and then XSquawkBox
    • In the Connect menu fill in BE58 in the Model field (ICAO-code for Baron 58
    • Press connect

This should show you as a Beechcraft Baron 58 to the other players.